The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) is an unnecessary $4.2 billion (B) boon to Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico that will help keep LANL business booming well into the future -- not just business in general but nuclear weapons production in particular.

It is a real and symbolic provocation that will undermine global efforts toward disarmament and non-proliferation.

A Modern “Pit” Factory

The CMRR project is said to replace the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building, an old structure that the laboratory has partially abandoned. The CMR was (and is) LANL's biggest all-purpose industrial-scale chemistry laboratory, capable of pilot production and of handling radioactive materials of all kinds. It has unique facilities which will not be replaced by CMRR (e.g. hot cells for remote handling of radioactive materials).

The “replacement” part of the CMRR name is deceptive in other ways too, given that the scope of the new facility includes a storage vault for 6 metric tons (6,000 kilograms) of plutonium, which would about triple LANL's inventory. Next door, but sharing the same security perimeter, is the existing Plutonium Facility, which contains all the necessary equipment and technology for assembling large quantities of plutonium warhead cores, known as “pits.” If funded, this project would fulfill George W. Bush’s plan to build a “modern” pit facility, capable of turning out large numbers of pits for new warheads in short order, at a rate NNSA documents suggest would be 125 pits/year, surging to 200 pits/year if necessary.

Construction began on the first and smaller of two buildings in the CMRR project in January 2006. It will be complete in 2013. Current projections estimate that the Nuclear Facility will be complete in 2022.

During the Bush Administration, project funding rose slowly. House members in particular were aware that the big buildup seemed to be at cross purposes with dwindling needs and international treaties, and questioned its overall rationale. House appropriators resisted and then denied administration funding requests, but the project was kept alive by the Senate, particularly by Republican Sen. Pete Domenici’s influence in conference committee negotiations.

Nuclear Rearmament

When the Obama administration submitted its budget proposal this year, the funding request for CMRR-NF more than doubled to $225 million (M) from the $97 million it obtained in 2009. Another increase, to $305 M, is expected for 2012.

The overall project has been marked by escalating costs -- eightfold since the project's initiation -- and by an unsettling new seismic assessment that requires extraordinary compensatory measures. If built, CMRR would become the largest public project in New Mexico history by about a factor of ten.

To add to the folly, the additional pit manufacturing capability is no longer needed, because the existing spare pit inventory provides thousands of usable backups to the decreasing stockpile. All these pits will last until at least the last decades of the century. Without CMRR-NF, LANL already has a significant pit manufacturing capability, which has been only loosely managed because there is no demand for the product. Among the sane and sensible ways to cut the federal budget, cutting the CMRR-NF is one of the best, on behalf of our country and the world.

If we do build CMRR-NF, don’t ask where the money went for the schools we need, or the climate- and business-saving infrastructure, or the health and elder-care. We will have buried our hopes for a better future in a pit on a mesa in New Mexico.

Note on CMRR costs (4/19/10): Today we realized we had been misinterpreting National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) estimated CMRR costs since February. We gave these as $5 billion (B) for the CMRR project as a whole and $4.2 B for the Nuclear Facility. NNSA's current estimates are actually $4.2 B for the project as a whole and $3.4 B for the Nuclear Facility. Our estimates for the whole project include $400 million for dismantlement and disposal of the CMR building, which is a mid-range figure escalated to today's dollars from NNSA's prior estimates. All NNSA's estimates are still preliminary and will remain so until at least 2012.

Although our data is incomplete, it appears the current estimated cost of the CMRR project is equal to all cumulative spending at Site Y and LASL, in constant 2010 dollars, from 1943 through 1954 (11 years). During this period atomic bombs were first developed, tested, and produced (all stockpile pits were produced at Los Alamos up to 1949), three plutonium facilities were built in Los Alamos to support these activities (Building D, DP Site, and CMR), fission bombs were rapidly miniaturized, and the first hydrogen bombs were developed, tested, and deployed.

The cost of all the plutonium-related facility upgrades presently underway is somewhat more than CMRR costs and is roughly equal to all cumulative Los Alamos spending for its first 13 years, from 1943 to 1956.

RLUOB construction in the early stages, looking east. The face of the excavation shown is about 40' tall. CMRR-NF will require a pit at least three times this deep - a challenging problem on this crowded site.
CMRR-NF will require many times more construction materials than the RLUOB.

Nuclear Matters: A Practical Guide, 2008 edition, (4pdf MB) Office of the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters. (In-depth discussion of nuclear weapons written for the military.Good overview of the nuclear weapons enterprise and its terminology from the military perspective.)

The committee continues to believe that replacing the existing Chemical and Metallurgical Research facility is essential but that the new Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement (CMRR) facility has many unresolved issues including the appropriate size of the facility. CMRR will be a category I facility supporting pit operations in building PF–4. Now that the Nuclear Posture Review is completed the NNSA and the Department of Defense (DOD) are in a better position to ensure that the facility is appropriately sized. Elsewhere in this act the committee has recommended a provision to require construction project baselines and to track cost and schedule issues. The committee is very concerned that the NNSA follow the DOE 413 order series and project management and guidance. The NNSA is also directed to conduct a true independent cost estimate for the CMRR Nuclear Facility [CMRR-NF], phase III of the CMRR project. The committee is concerned that the phase III project [CMRR-NF] is being divided into multiple sub-projects. Notwithstanding this management approach the committee directs the CMRR baseline to reflect all phases and subprojects for the purposes of the cost and schedule baseline provision and to be accounted for as a single project.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plows ahead with a more or less $4.7B program of replacement and expansion of plutonium facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Why it must be stopped.

New Mexico's Largest Public Infrastructure Investments
in Relation to Estimated CMRR Costs
(Costs are best available; dates mostly at completion; CMRR assumed to cost $4.2B)

Project

Year

Cost Then ($M)

Cost in 2010 ($M)1

Percent CMRR

Elephant Butte Dam, NM

1916

5.2

222

5%

Golden Gate Bridge, CA

1937

35

850

20%

San Juan Chama Diversion

1964

>35

>272

>6%

Cochiti Dam, NM

1975

94.4

344

8%

LANL TA-55 PF-4

1978

75

213

5%

I-40 + I-25 highways, NM (treated here as one project)

1956-1995

~7.4 M/mile, 2006 dollars

Ballpark 6,666

159%

Big I Interchange, Albuquerque

2001

290

386

9%

San Juan Chama drinking water project, Albuquerque

2008

280

283

7%

Railrunner Heavy Rail Extension to Santa Fe (incl. track lease)

2008

~400

~404

10%

LANL DARHT (very approximate)

~2008

~400

~404

~10%

SNL MESA Complex

2008

516.5

522

12%

[1] Costs inflated to 2008 using the "Building Cost Index," from Engineering News-Record, Which began in 1923. Elephant Butte Dam costs were inflated from 1916 to 1923 using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). CPI used from 2008 to 2010. References are omitted here; inquire for details.